[patrec]

5 years is still infinitely more than 0 which would soon become the natural life span of dairy cows if veganism won a complete victory and everyone suddenly lost all interest in beef, milk and leather.

In terms of interesting things that are not mentioned, I'd really much rather hear what this style of farming consumes more of as this sheds light on whether it has any applicability beyond supplying luxury goods. We are told 90% less antibiotics, half the energy and so on and so forth; well all these cost money so presumably if they use much less energy and antibiotics per same yield and have not rolled up the industry there must be valuable things they consume more of. What are they, and is there realistic hope they can be rendered less harmful than consuming 10x the antibiotics and 2x the energy etc?

[mdahlstrand]

Better to have lived short and suffered than not to have been born at all?

If it helps with our environmental catastrophe I’m alright with many fewer cows being born, particularly since the lives we bring them into is so full of suffering.

[hervature]

Given the choice of not being born and being born into harsh conditions that result in an unhappy life and an early death, most people would take the 0.

[patrec]

Of the many cows I've met in my life few seemed to be weighed down by the harsh conditions of their existence and burdened by foreknowledge of their early death. Maybe a cow contemplating your existence would similarly wonder how you could possibly bear it?

In any case compared to a lot of life both cows and humans seem to me to be doing pretty well in terms of realistically attainable levels of happiness and life expectancy. We don't die an agonizing death from horrendous facial tumours spread by periodically chewing each others' faces off and being literally eaten alive by our offspring is not the pinnacle of our existence.